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The season is back, the trade deadline approaches and for a team like the
Maple Leafs
, the playoffs seem a probability.

There’s no denying the scoreboard watching has begun.

“You definitely focus on playing your game, and you keep an eye off the scoreboard,” said captain Dion Phaneuf. “You’re aware of where you’re at and aware of what’s going on around you. You have to be.”

As far as the folks at
Sportsclubstats
are considered, the Leafs have a 70.4 per cent chance of making the playoffs. Of course, those probabilities don’t take into account injuries and roster changes that are inevitable.

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The Leafs won’t be happy with just making the playoffs. They’d much rather go in as a division champion than as the wild-card, where they now sit.

“We want to push, we want to keep moving up,” said Phaneuf. “We’re not looking at the teams below us. We’re trying to catch the teams that are above us. We want to move up the standings.”

PENDING FREE AGENTS

The Leafs will probably add talent heading into the trade deadline, perhaps another defenceman, although no big moves are anticipated.

The bigger picture is the team moving forward. Sure, they’re good enough to make the playoffs and have a good run, maybe win a round or two and get the city excited.

But the idea is long-term success. They may be too young, too inexperienced to be considered Stanley Cup contenders this year. But they’re not far off.

So the bigger question becomes: “What to do with their list of pending free agents?” The trade deadline is a good time to move the ones you don’t think you’ll need anymore, although you don’t want to gut your depth going into the playoffs.

The Leafs already have $50.2 million committed to 13 players, leaving around $20 million for 10 players next season.

Here’s a look at the Leafs’ list of pending free agents, and what the team might do with them.

GOALIES

James Reimer.

July 1 status:
Restricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$1.8 million

As an RFA, the Leafs have the stronger hand to keep his salary low. They’ll not want to pay him any more than Jonathan Bernier’s $2.9 million, because that would open a hornets’ nest if the backup earned more than the starter. Reimer is for all intents and purposes the backup. The Leafs will keep him for this playoff run — they need goaltending depth and the talent level drops off precipitously after Reimer. If they can sign him this summer for less than $2.9 million, they’ll keep him.

DEFENCE

Cody Franson

July 1 status:
Restricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$2 million

Franson, remember, held out for this deal. He’s had an uneven season. His offence has been good, but not off-the-charts good. His defence has been suspect. His playing time is vulnerable to the emergence of Morgan Rielly. He’ll want a long-term deal in the $4 million range because he’s only a year away from unrestricted free-agency, and will probably get it. Once he does, his trade value will rise. The Leafs would probably like to hold on to Franson while Rielly incubates. But, as they say, you have to give to get. Franson’s an interesting piece of trade bait to dangle.

Jake Gardiner

July 1 status:
Restricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$875,000

Gardiner, like Franson, has had an uneven season. His upside is through the roof. He can be retained at a lower salary than Franson, however, because his UFA status is further away. If Franson is moved, Gardiner will be around long term. The team just thinks too highly of his talent.

Paul Ranger

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent.

Current cap hit:
$1 million

Ranger has been a good soldier in his comeback year, but he has been far from a standout. No matter where he lands, his salary demands will not be extravagant. The Leafs need defence heading into the playoffs. Look for him to stick around past the trade deadline, but come summer, it’s anyone’s guess.

FORWARDS

Dave Bolland

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$3.375 million

The Leafs got Bolland for the playoffs, so there’s no doubt he’s a keeper. His ankle injury puts both sides in potentially precarious positions. The Leafs want to re-sign him, locking up a perfect third-line centre for years. But his ankle injury is the kind that could hinder him for years. Bolland might be best to gamble on himself and see what the market bears come July 1. If the Leafs know for sure he won’t re-sign — and he could take a quarter of the remaining cap space — they’d be wise to trade him. But his injury reduces his trade value. And his upside makes him too valuable for the Leafs to lose. And with Bolland and Nazem Kadri, there may be no room for Peter Holland, currently with the Marlies, to bloom.

Nikolai Kulemin

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$2.8 million

If there’s a forward on the roster who could be a tipping point in a trade in the Leafs’ favour, it’s Kulemin. There’s a lot to like about the no-nonsense way Kulemin plays, even if he doesn’t score like he used to. Teams covet that kind of player. And if the Leafs are serious about bringing Leo Komarov back next year, there’s probably no room for the both of them. If the Leafs deal off their roster to improve, say, on defence, Kulemin is a chip to be played. Pair him with Franson for a top-4 defenceman and you could have a deal that helps both teams.

Jay McClement

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$1.5 million

McClement ought to be a Leaf for life, a perfect fourth-line centre with penalty-killing abilities. His long-term future, however, might be tied directly to Bolland. If Bolland sticks around, the Leafs would appear set at centre for some time with Tyler Bozak and Nazem Kadri. They might like to use the fourth-line centre role to give a younger centre some playing time.

Mason Raymond.

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$1 million

No doubt that Raymond is a bargain-basement find for any team in a tight cap situation. Raymond’s speed and scoring ability mean he’ll be in line for a raise and maybe a three-year deal next year. A useful player who can play up and down the lineup, he does have the ability to go missing in action once in a while. He seems rather low-maintenance, too. The Leafs don’t have a player quite like him with the Marlies. The betting is he re-signs.

Troy Bodie

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$600,0000

Everyone’s favourite son-in-law gained fans with his hard-nosed play. The only reason to trade him now would be to open up a roster spot.

Carter Ashton

July 1 status:
Restricted free agent.

Current cap hit:
$840,000

Like Gardiner, Ashton is coming to the end of his entry-level deal and can be signed to terms favourable for the Leafs.

Trevor Smith

July 1 status:
Unrestricted free agent

Current cap hit:
$550,000

Smith is another bargain-basement find who probably won’t have a lot of bargaining power next year. He’s a useful player to have around. If the Leafs move him, it will only be to open a roster spot for someone better.

DEFENDING GOLD

So all the Maple Leafs watched Canada’s gold medal game. But did they learn anything from it? We might be in the eye of the beholder territory here, but coach Randy Carlyle says Canada’s win was all about one thing: Defence.

“I looked at it and I hope our players understand that defence does win,” said Carlyle. “It is as simple as statement as you can make. That game was played a very high pace. But defence was very evident in the way they approached it. How they tried to set up their defensive schemes.”

Captain Dion Phaneuf agreed.

“Defence wins,” said Phaneuf. “You’ve seen that over a long time. Not just that team. Defensive teams have success.

“When you play good defence it means you have the puck more. And that creates more offence. How they won that championship they played very strong defence.”

There are Leaf links to a few of the standouts on Team Canada. Jonathan Bernier was teammates in Los Angeles with both Drew Doughty and Jeff Carter. And Dave Bolland was teammates with Jonathan Toews, who scored the winner against Sweden.

“He is a class act,” Bolland said of Toews. “He is one of those captains you want on every team. He brings it on the ice and he leaves it at there. He’s full of everything. He is always speaking up. I sat beside him. I had to put earplugs in sometimes.

“He’s going to make his voice heard if things are going wrong on the ice.”

Doughty, of course, had a breakout performance on the blue line while Carter proved a force no matter what line he was on.

“I always knew those two guys were really good,” Bernier said of Carter and Doughty. “There’s a reason why we won a Cup (in Los Angeles) a few years ago.

“They played exactly the style every coach dreams of. They’re great defensively and they work hard. I thought Doughty was the best player in that tournament. He played with a lot of confidence.”

STATS PACK

If you had to, you could sum up the Leafs’ season (60 games of it anyway) simply by connecting the first 14 games and the last 14 games as identical twins, with the ugly duckling sibling in the middle.

While there is no simple way to look at the Leafs and why they are impressively entrenched in third in their division, it’s for certain that they went on two 14-game hot streaks so far this season – a 10-4-0 start, and an 11-2-1 run into the Olympic break.

That middle section — 12-15-5 — was the blemish on the season so far.

But it’s also a distant memory.

Here’s what we know and have seen with the Leafs as NHL play resumes after the Olympic break:

Phil Kessel should reach 40 goals for the first time in his career. He has 32 now, and with 22 games left, the 40-goal barrier is easily within reach. After that, 45 is doable … 50 may be a long shot. But Kessel is the hottest goal scorer and point producer in the NHL since Jan. 1.

Since Dave Andreychuk potted 53 goals during the 1993-’94 season, only Mats Sundin has managed to crack 40. He scored 41 twice, in 1996-’97 and in 2001-02.

The Leafs have given up more shots than any other team (2,175, or 36.2 shots per game). Collectively, the goaltending has combined to save 91.8 per cent of those shots.

Meanwhile, the Leafs have only managed 1,668 shots for 24th in the league. But they have a remarkable ability to find the net when they do shoot, with 169 goals for (seventh in the league), or a 10.1 shooting percentage success rate. Only St. Louis, Anaheim and Pittsburgh have higher rates of converting shots into goals.

(An excellent resource is
extraskater.com
, designed for the analytics crowd but also providing the raw data so you can have your own fun.)

“We all know as a team if you play well defensively, you’re definitely going to be on the right side of the puck, you’re going to get your scoring chances as well,” said goalie Jonathan Bernier.

“We know we can score goals. If we can tighten up a little bit on defence, we feel like we can be a tough team.”

The Leafs’ practices this week during the break have a training camp feel to them. They’re longer than they would be normally with 20-odd games left, with a lot of teaching.

The Leafs were 21-10-5 last season in games in which they were outshot, and are now 25-17-6 this season. They are one of the league’s worst puck possession teams, but are also among the best in the league in shooting and save percentage. Overall, Toronto has been outshot in 49 of 60 games so far. They are 7-4-0 when they outshoot their opposition.

“There are areas that we’ve proven to ourselves if we do these things, we give ourselves a chance for success,” said Leafs coach Randy Carlyle. “I don’t think it’s any more than that. Our hockey club is very much a work in progress.

“Obviously we’ve given up far too many shots that have been scoring chances. We have relied on our goaltenders. Those are the things we’re trying to focus on.

“We have to compete to a higher level. Simple as that.”

MORE STATS

During that opening 10-4 run, Toronto was scoring on average 3.4 goals per game, according to the number-crunching folks at
Maple Leafs Hot Stove.

Nov. 2 came, and with it a game in Vancouver where the Leafs would lose Dave Bolland to an ankle tendon injury that has sidelined him nearly four months and counting. From that date, through to the end of January, when the Leafs picked up their play again, that lofty goals-per-game average dropped to 2.18. An experiment to move James Van Riemsdyk to centre failed; Toronto lost Tyler Bozak to injury as well, and signed Jerred Smithson to help weather the rash of injuries to their centre corps. Jay McClement — a third- or fourth-line centre — saw his ice time increase to over 20 minutes a game on many nights. The shots-against average stayed at 36 but the save percentage dropped to .912.

Over the last 14 games, the goal-scoring has returned, with a goals-per-game average now at a 3.8 clip.

The penalty kill is showing signs of improvement — minor signs, but signs all the same. Over the past seven games, Toronto has killed off 13 of 14 penalties, good for a 93 per cent clip.

•What will it take to seal a playoff berth? The easy path is to get about 23 to 25 points in their remaining 22 games.

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